Break the Stick: Rules and Wild Ideas
In the course of creating Spillian, I’ve found myself regularly chanting particular ideas like a mantra – an idea about whatever it was we were trying to make happen at that time and how to handle its complexities. These burbled up from somewhere, maybe from my toes, maybe from the ground I was standing on, maybe these incredible stone mountains we’ve landed on. Going after crazy wild ideas often isn’t easy.
So I would hold this idea, whatever it was – a lesson, a plan of attack, a way to approach a problem, a bit of silliness – to me from anywhere from a week to a month, until another one would emerge. And depending upon what it was, I would use it as a cloak. Or a tool. Or a weapon. Even, sometimes, a solace. Sometimes I’d just hug the idea to myself, and sometimes I would use it with the other people around me, whether that was any one of the number of other people we were dealing with, from contractors, to engineers, to bureaucrats, to bankers, to vendors…all of whom had their own needs and their own agendas. And none (well, most) of whom had no malice, but often they didn’t have, certainly, the kind of vision and commitment that we had, because it wasn’t their dream. They were always answering what they needed to answer to. That’s what we all do.
When A Realization Becomes a “Rule”
These “rules” (note the quotation marks) are the ideas that I chose to live by, and work through, and became ways that I could keep going on when things seemed truly impossible. I could find a pattern in things and make enough sense in things to feel like I could find a solution, rather than just being overwhelmed with whatever the latest challenge or problem was. This pattern of insight would become the rule for the week, or the month…
So I’ll be sharing the “rules” that I’ve been discovering. Thoughts, ideas, strategies, things to break if it means that you need to shatter something to break out of and away from the straight line that is limiting what you’re imagining.
Grab the ones that have meaning for you, and make them your own. The ones that don’t? Ignore them. They may never have meaning to you, or six months down the road, you might think, “oh, wow, this could be helpful right now.” And that would be just totally cool.
And hopefully they’ll spur your awareness of your own.
Here’s the first rule, to get us started.
Rule Number One: There are No Rules
When you’re creating something, everything is a guidepost, and, ultimately, everything is a possibility.
That said, some days it feels like everything is an almost-insurmountable challenge to overcome. But here’s the magic secret that I keep discovering: beyond the basic the laws of physics, there is never one way, really, to do anything. There are always different ways to approach problems.
The dreams of our sleep get this. (And are rather wonderfully not bound even by physics.) To dream something into being when our eyes are open takes, I find, a willingness to play against what the world insists “this is how all things are done.”
A rule, in its earliest etymological roots, is a straight stick. Sometimes you need to bend the stick, and sometimes you’ve got to break it. Maybe into little bits. And then burn it. Or give it to your dog to chew.
Do you have patterns you’ve discovered to help you break the rules? How do you break the stick? Share them in the comments if you’d like. I’d love to hear what has worked for you.
Want to kindle your wild idea to life? Sign up for weekly sparks to get you going. Let’s light the world on fire. Click here to subscribe!
Hi Leigh,
I love this topic and look forward to your future posts about your Ideas to Live By. I’m in the middle of a new and very creative project. One that is breaking all the rules. After a lifetime of breaking rules and seeing the success that comes from “outside the box” thinking (and executing), I know when I’m on the right path to something when an idea pops into my head, I verbalize it for a few minutes (literally have to “speak” it out loud ) and at the end, I say “I’m so excited!” It’s a surge of energy and happiness — must be a rush of endorphins – that comes when an unusual, yet great idea comes to my mind. So, I’ve come to realize that this is a pattern:the phrase “I’m so excited” tells me to honor my idea and keep moving forward with it, even if I get push-back from others.
Oh, Liz, thank you! I love this! This is exactly what I’m talking about – those pops of energy that make things clear, even when the world pushes back. And man, yes, I hear you on the push back – I’m so aware of how that can stop an idea in its tracks if we let it. What a great way to check that! Woot!
Way to start this series off with a bang, Leigh! Great stuff! I can definitely relate to Liz’s guidepost as well, with the phrase “I’m so excited.” For me, the magic words for this year have actually been: “Be the architect.” It’s a phrase that instantly reminds me to think about the ideal way that a new endeavor could unfold and then plot a course toward that destination – instead of simply accepting the scraps in easy reach and trying to cobble together a solution that is ultimately a lot less rewarding. There’s such a vast difference between the energy associated with “being the architect” versus “being the seeker” in one’s own life, and — whenever I catch myself in the mindset of the latter — I step back up into the former, and take the bold actions necessary to bring about what I really want, instead of settling for less. It’s a powerful exercise that dramatically shifts possibilities! As you suggested at the end of your post, sometimes it’s not just about breaking sticks, but setting that kindling on fire to create something wholly new, different, and exhilarating….
Love this, Nikki! Great phrase. It’s reminding me of my dad, who has spent a lifetime in undergraduate education, and how he talks about education being about an opportunity to learn how to ‘self author’ – which I think connects in some cool ways into ‘be the architect.’ Love it. Thank you!
Great topic, Leigh! I’ve spent much of my so-called career pursuing things — projects, industries, capabilities — I found interesting, with little regard for my working position or title. One thing I have found is that others spend an extraordinary amount of time and effort in trying to classify me so they can compartmentalize and choose how they want to interact with me. Examples include: “Oh, you’re the HR guy,” or “That’s such an American thing to say.” In that process, people try to put me in a box, including, at least in their mind, clear boundaries defining the thoughts and behaviors they expect from me, and I became subject to their vision of my current capabilities and potential. I allowed this “waiting for permission to grow” to happen for quite some time, and in some ways, was raised and educated to accept this passive surrendering to the expectations of others. My epiphany about this came when I declared myself “self-employed” for a time. I found it very freeing to seize the latitude and control to define and pursue my interests and engage with my clients and vendors in ways that interested me, and for which I was willing to accept the consequences of my choices.
How have you been “put in a box” by others, and more importantly, what advice can you offer about breaking out of the box to pursue your interests?
Oh, man, Marc, yes! I struggle with this, too, being the queen of the toddlers chasing shiny keys…people often have a hard time putting me in a box. I spent a bunch of years being really frustrated by this – it has made finding work challenging at times, for example, because what I’ve done in my life hasn’t fit into a specific box and the linear career accomplishments that go with that. And at times, it’s been the source of some deep existential angst about my own identity.
That said, as I’m getting older, I’m seeing with more and more clarity the connective tissue between what has felt like really disparate pieces in my life. I’m finding that my understanding of ideas, projects, possibilities are deeper because of it – I feel like the glasses I wear are prisms of a sort, allowing me to see all of the pieces (or colors, to follow the metaphor more closely). Seeing the individual pieces with this kind of articulation can be enormously helpful in making things happen.
We’ve been in such an era of specialization, where a kind of mono-construction of skills, experiences, and identity has been valued as the path to wisdom. I think that’s a mistake. And I think it’s changing – in part, I think, because of the access to knowledge, ideas, and community afforded in our emerging digital world. People have the ability to dive into things that are important to them in newly accessible ways.
In terms of breaking out of the box – for me, it also was about seeing myself as being self-employed, at least to start. And I began to very consciously work on identifying the through lines that connected what were wildly different interests/experiences on the surface – looking for the essences, the qualities, the metaphors that drove them. As I was finishing my coursework in grad school, I realized that in many ways, the biggest one for me was imagination as a force for possibility. As I looked at all of the stuff I’d done so far in my life, the juice behind pretty much all of it was about imagination. That was a big lightbulb! It allowed me to start to frame myself and my work in a way that had cohesion.
So, my question to folks wrestling with this is: what are the through lines in your work/interests/ideas/skills? What is common to them that gives you juice? My guess is that as you begin to think about this, you’ll see them popping up all over. Once you’ve done this, I think you can begin to pursue the projects that speak to those, and begin to have a meta-level way of defining yourself that isn’t being “the HR guy” – or the equivalent. The ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of what we do in the world is much deeper than the ‘how’ – even though the how is what we tend to get hung up on. (Along with dangling participles…)
Thank, you, Marc! Great thoughts and questions that pushed my thinking forward today. Grateful!